


Tic

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: Good Enough [8]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2012-2013 NHL Season, Anxiety, M/M, Relationship Fluff, Tourette's Syndrome, Workplace Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 11:31:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18637279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: It’s fucking frustrating. In May he’ll turn twenty six; he’s heard and read that in about 90% of cases, the symptoms of Tourette’s get less and less severe the older someone gets, and, yeah, it’s nowhere near as bad as when he was in high school. But instead of getting better, it just seems like it’s plateaued instead. He’s still as fidgety and spontaneously loud as he was at eighteen, and it’s fucking frustrating. Plus, it’s the little things like this that get him. Not so much the big ones, like punching someone twice his size and getting his ass kicked before subsequently being tossed in the box by the ref. The little things are so much worse, because they happen so much more often.[For anyone scared to read this because they think Tourette's is some horrible disease, it's not. It's commonly portrayed in media as the behavior disorder that makes you scream swear words at people no matter how inaccurate that really is.]





	Tic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> More for trua, because you like this series and leave comments a lot :) <3

Most people would probably look at their relationship and assume certain things were different from how they are. For instance, Patrice is the one who sings in the shower as loud as he can, Brad’s the one who actually folds his laundry and puts it away before it gets wrinkled, Patrice forgets to take off his shoes when he comes into people’s houses, and Brad is the one who knows how to cook.

Brad’s already noticed all these things about their relationship and said relationship is exactly a week old. (To be fair he already knew about Patrice forgetting to take his shoes off.) The thing he’s not prepared for, this being the first time Patrice has stayed overnight, is that when the alarm goes off, his boyfriend is the one who whines and rolls over without even opening his eyes.

“Lazy,” Brad teasingly scolds. He kisses Patrice’s temple. “It’s okay, I was gonna make breakfast anyway.”

“Uh-huh,” Patrice mumbles before immediately going back to sleep.

Brad looks in his fridge and finds eggs and some other things, so they’ll have omelets this morning. He scribbles _buy food_ on the tiny whiteboard held to the side of his fridge with magnets and throws together a passable breakfast - it’d be better if he’d bought groceries yesterday instead, or if they had more time before practice, but whatever. Patrice will forgive him.

“Oh, fuck you!” Brad screams at himself when he tics and drops the carton of juice. One more thing he gets to spend money on without actually being allowed to enjoy it. He grabs a bunch of paper towels and mops it up off the floor.

It’s fucking frustrating. In May he’ll turn twenty six; he’s heard and read that in about 90% of cases, the symptoms of Tourette’s get less and less severe the older someone gets, and, yeah, it’s nowhere near as bad as when he was in high school. But instead of getting better, it just seems like it’s plateaued instead. He’s still as fidgety and spontaneously loud as he was at eighteen, and it’s fucking frustrating. Plus, it’s the little things like this that get him. Not so much the big ones, like punching someone twice his size and getting his ass kicked before subsequently being tossed in the box by the ref. The little things are so much worse, because they happen so much more often.

After dumping the paper towels and empty juice carton in the trash, he goes back into the bedroom and lightly shakes Patrice. “Nnnnnn,” he whines, pushing Brad’s hand away. “Five more minutes.”

“Get up, you slug, I made you breakfast,” Brad grins, shaking harder until his boyfriend finally complies and staggers out of bed. “Patrice Bergeron-Cleary, I fucking hate you so much.”

Patrice’s head jerks up, alarmed and more awake. “What? Why? Did I do something?”

“This is fucking unfair!” Brad informs him. “You literally just got up, you’re a fucking mess, but you’re still _gorgeous!_ You have no right to be this handsome!”

Patrice needs a second to process this information, then he starts giggling. “If you say so.”

“I do say so,” Brad insists, grabbing Patrice’s hand and dragging him into the kitchen. “Now eat… uh, there’s no juice, though. I mean. There was some, but it had an accident with the floor.”

“Oh. That’s okay, I want coffee instead,” Patrice shrugs, dropping into the chair.

They eat in comfortable silence because Brad’s still not completely awake either, then get dressed and drive to the rink. Apparently he was _really_ not paying attention to what he was doing, because it’s only as he’s getting out of the car that Brad realizes he’s wearing yesterday’s clothes. Which is definitely not a good thing, because Patrice is also in yesterday’s clothes, and that’s fucking obvious… maybe nobody will notice…

When they get into the locker room, though, Quaider _immediately_ draws attention to this, and above even the chirping and laughing there’s now Krej and Looch demanding that “everyone pay up.” Apparently there was a betting pool going.

“So how long?” Segs demands through a huge grin, looking right at Brad.

“Uh… what?”

“Bro, you know we love you, but come on. It’s not a hard question. How long.”

It takes him a second, because his coffee is still in the process of soaking into his brain. “Oh. Um. Like a week.”

“That’s it?” Soupy snorts, disbelieving.

“What? You think _those two_ would be able to hide it longer than that?” Kevan points out.

“Alright, everyone, enough of this please,” Z interrupts. “Brad, Patrice, a word please.”

Brad starts to sweat - he didn’t pin his captain for a homophobe, but maybe… fuck, fuck, he’s about to get his ass kicked and he knows it.

Patrice waits until the three of them are in the hallway, then grabs his hand and squeezes it. “Brad, deep breath. You’re okay.”

“Please, you’re not in trouble,” Z agrees. “Just to be clear, you both will not let this affect you on the ice, yes?”

“Of course,” Patrice nods. “We’d never do anything to get the team in trouble.”

“I didn’t think so,” Z nods. “Good. Bradley, please relax, we have practice.”

Brad nods. He takes a breath like Patrice told him to and they go back into the dressing room to get ready. Kells and Jagr are both giving them looks, but nobody says anything mean. For the most part, the team is happy for them and making jokes. Then Brad has a tic - it’s not anything terrible, he just reaches out and taps Jagr’s arm on the way by. In response, his team mate shoves him hard and sends him sprawling onto his ass.

“Don’t fucking touch me, Marchand.”

“Hey, man, you need to chill,” Soupy murmurs, intervening and pulling Jagr back a bit.

Brad keeps ticcing. As he gets to his feet he feels himself sneer and hears his own voice spit out “Yeah, fuck you, too,” which are both things that happen without his permission. The phonic tics are almost always more destructive than the motor tics, because motor tics can usually be explained away as fidgeting or a moment of clumsiness. Phonic tics can only be passed off as jokes and sarcasm most of the time, but this is one of those where Brad has no chance.

Brad is fast, but he can’t get away… mainly because he’s not expecting to get charged and subsequently boarded by his own team mate. There’s a hand in his practice jersey right under his neck and a fist drawing back, and thank god for Z and Johnny because they show up in time to pull Jagr away before Brad gets decked.

“Go cool off,” Z snaps, forcing Jagr in the direction of the bench and looking furious.

Johnny reaches a hand down for Brad to grab: “You alright, man?”

“Yeah,” he lies, nodding and hoping his eyes don’t give him away. Because he’s fucking scared now and what just happened isn’t okay.

“It’s good, Marchy, he’ll get over it,” Johnny insists. “It’ll be alright.”

Brad nods again and tries to shake it off. In the corner of his eye, he can see Z giving Jagr a talking-to at the bench. Looking the other direction reveals Patrice, who was too far away to do anything and had watched the whole incident. He looks like he could cry.

Segs comes skidding over: “The hell was that, Marchy?”

“Nothing.”

His friend’s face twists into something murderous. “I’m gonna go kick his ass-”

“Hey, no.” Johnny grabs Segs’ jersey and yanks enough to hold him still. “Z’s got this, let’s just get back to skating, okay?”

“Yeah, man, if I wanted his ass kicked I’d do it myself,” Brad jokes, forcing a snarky grin. He pats Seggy’s shoulder pad. “Thanks for having my back though, bro. ’Preciate it.”

Segs doesn’t look convinced, but still nods and glides off. Brad goes over to Patrice.

“I wasn’t expecting…” his boyfriend whispers, unable to finish.

“Me neither,” Brad agrees. “It’s okay, Z’s got it.”

“It’s not okay, Brad. Jaromir was about to _kill_ you.”

“Yeah but I started it,” he shrugs. “I had a…” He looks around. A couple of the guys are watching them, so he doesn’t say it. He never says _tic_ when people are looking. “I started it.”

Patrice’s expression is the textbook _yeah, not buying it_ face. It promises further discussion at a later time, but for right now, they need to get back to practice. Kells is still watching them like in the dressing room, but he doesn’t seem angry-disgusted like Jagr; mostly he just looks uncomfortable. Well, okay. That can be worked with. Brad should talk to him.

Nothing else happens during practice, but Z holds them for a moment in the dressing room once everyone’s done shucking their gear. “Some of you have been misbehaving, today, or asking me things that don’t fit with the team. Understand, everyone, that nothing changes. This is the same team. We are the same players as yesterday. It’s better this happens at practice, and not in a game, but this is still not okay. We don’t have room on this team for hate and none of you needs to pretend-” He glances around, eyes lingering on Brad and Patrice both for half a second - “to be different from how you are. Understand?”

There are murmurs of “yes” from around the room.

“Good. I never want to see this happen again.”

After that, though, they both get dragged off to be hassled by Coach Julien, who seems to be unimpressed with them. They get lectured about teamwork and shift chemistry and how if they have relationship problems in the future it’ll affect everyone else.

Eventually Patrice gets fed up with this.

“Coach,” he begins, in a tone that’s clearly drawing on overtaxed patience, “we’ve done nothing the jeopardize the team. We’re both going to work hard to make sure it stays that way. If we do start to slip up, please feel free to let us know so we can fix it, but until then I think it would be fair if you can treat our relationship with the same respect as you would any of our team mates’.”

Julien frowns, but finally he nods and lets them go. Brad hadn’t said a word the whole time they were in the head coach’s office, but that’s mostly because he’s all nerves right now and it’s kind of a miracle that he can hold in his tics until they’re safely in the car on the way home. He snaps his fingers and jerks his head and slaps his palms into his ears, and he’s just waiting for the inevitable conversation about Jagr.

He doesn’t have to wait long. “Brad, what happened on the ice?”

“I had a tic. I just tapped his arm and he flipped his shit.”

“It looked like you said something.”

“Yeah, I… that was a tic, too. I told him to go fuck himself pretty much. I didn’t mean it…”

Patrice sighs and reaches over for his hand. “I know you didn’t. Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, he never actually hit me.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Brad shrugs. “It’s going to happen again… I’ll just try not to tic next time.”

Patrice’s thumb rubs his knuckles. “That’s not fair to you.”

“Since when is _anything_ fair to me?” Brad grumbles. “I’m fucking used to it by now.” Then, he finds himself smiling. “You’re not scared, though.”

“What?”

“When Z took us out for a talk. You just held my hand and didn’t even care. It like, it means a lot. It means a lot to me that you’re not scared to hold my hand in front of people.”

Patrice nods and smiles back, glancing away from the road for a split seconds. “I’ll always hold your hand, Brad. Especially when life’s not fair.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was me writing players that I know nothing about except that they're not Bruins anymore. It's nice to imagine that the team would be chipper and accepting of Bergy and Marchy dating each other but in reality, that's just not realistic. I picked Chris Kelly and Jaromir Jagr to act like dickheads because they were two of the older players on the 2012-2013 Bruins roster and not through any ill feelings towards the players themselves.


End file.
